A Salute to Grace Hopper, the Grandmother of COBOL

Today, I’m celebrating a very special birthday of an incredible American computer scientist and Rear Admiral, whose innovative mind helped to build some of our foundational computer languages. Her life and career continues to inspire women in technology and encourage women to consider careers in technology.

Happy birthday, Grace Hopper, who was born this day in 1906! 

Celebrating COBOL @ 60

Not only is today Hopper’s birthday, but this year also marks a very special occasion as the Micro Focus community celebrates the 60th Anniversary of information technology's most enduring business language, COBOL - the Common Business-Oriented Language. Known for its innovation, portability, readability and business-centricity, programs written in the programming language are still quietly running some of the world's largest companies and powering our nation’s public sector.

The language has adapted to a changing IT landscape over the decades, and it has been constantly improved upon to incorporate innovations and support new standards, enabling enterprises to modernize while helping the language remain viable.

Since starting with the development of a COBOL compiler in 1976, Micro Focus has spearheaded the evolution and innovation of the language and the modern technology that supports it. Micro Focus Government Solutions and MFGS, Inc. continues that commitment to COBOL’s bedrock business processing to leverage digital transformation in all areas of the public sector, from supporting Federal agencies like the Small Business Administration, to state and local agencies like the City of Miami. 

A Language Built on Public Sector Innovation and One Woman’s Influence

We’re extremely proud to be part of such a long standing source of modernization. The very origins of COBOL come from fresh, innovative minds within the public sector itself! Created in 1959 as a U.S. Department of Defense project to assist data processing, the revolutionary language was truly built to last. COBOL was first imagined in the spring of 1959 at CODASYL, a two day conference that brought together computer experts from across industry and government. 

And one of the key actors during this pivotal movement was Grace Hopper, affectionately referred to as "the (grand)mother of COBOL" for her previous coding work that served as a precursor to the language as well as her instrumental guidance in the language’s creation and expansion. Hopper served as a technical consultant to the conference, and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language. COBOL extended Hopper's FLOW-MATIC language.

Hopper had an adamant belief that programs should be written in a language that was close to English (rather than in machine code). According to Hopper, "programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge."

"Programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge." - Rear Adm. Grace Hopper

Hopper went on to serve as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning from 1967 to 1977 and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1973. She developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy.

A Legacy Beyond COBOL, Inspiring Women in Tech

Hopper first joined the Navy during World War II and was assigned to program the Mark I computer. After the war, Hopper remained with the Navy as a reserve officer. As a research fellow at Harvard, she worked with the Mark II and Mark III computers. Although she originally retired from the Naval Reserve in 1966, her pioneering computer work on languages like COBOL meant that she would be recalled to active duty—at the age of 60—to tackle standardizing communication between different computer languages. She would remain with the Navy for 19 more years until retiring in 1986 (at age 79) as a rear admiral as well as the oldest serving officer in the service.

For her lifetime of accomplishments, Hopper was elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (1962), was named the first computer science Man of the Year by the Data Processing Management Association (1969), and was awarded the National Medal of Technology (1991) — becoming the first female individual recipient of the honor. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016).

Today, future women in tech have the opportunity to participate in the Grace Hopper Program at Fullstack Academy, an immersive software engineering course for women with no upfront tuition costs. The program provides world-class education with an advanced curriculum developed and taught by experienced instructors.

And every year, women technologists in computing convene at the Grace Hopper Celebration, presented by AnitaB.org and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), to highlight the contributions of women to computing.

Hopper once said, “A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for. Sail out to sea and do new things.” She certainly did and her incredible legacy lives on.

"Sail out to sea and do new things.” - Rear Adm. Grace Hopper